Knowledge and indifference in the New York City race riot of 1900: an argument in search of a story

On a street corner in New York City in the summer of 1900, an encounter between a white man, a black woman and a black man ended in the murder of the white man; soon thereafter, days and nights of white-on-black violence erupted in the neighborhood. When it was over, news of the riot spread across the city, the nation and beyond, and yet no justice was done to the victims, ever. This essay begins to reconstruct the story of the New York City race riot of 1900 and offers the beginnings of an argument about the circulation of knowledge, before pondering questions about storytelling and argument in the face of voices that have been erased and silenced in the archives.